Veteran TMS healer stumped by back soreness

So I posted an amazing success story on here before. Eight years ago I went from totally crippled to completely back to normal. I have never experienced that level of pain again and my back pain never came back. I have had numerous niggling little symptoms come up over the years and have been able to defeat them all with mindbody methods. Huge believer here.

I actually had several very frustrating symptoms this year - IB, anxiety, insomnia, very realistic ankle pain, which really almost fooled me (all related to the same issue) and I very successfully got rid of them all. This time around I found Gordon's The Way Out so helpful, as well as Help and Hope for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes. My experience this year has really renewed my passion for mindbody healing and opened my eyes even more to the power of the mind over the body, especially since a lot of these symptoms were the result of conditioning, not so much hidden emotional stress. However, in the midst of all these symptoms, my back began to get very stiff, and sometimes sore. That was 8 months ago, and it has never gone away. And I'm stumped. It has not budged at all. It has not responded to any mindbody treatments whatsoever, even as the other symptoms vanished. The only progress I can say I made with it is that when exercise seemed to be making it worse, I took a week off to rest from all vigorous exercise to prove to my brain that exercise was not the cause. Sure enough, resting did not help in the least - in fact I felt stiffer, if anything. And since then exercise has had no effect on the soreness. I don't even notice it when I'm playing sports/working out. So I continue to live my life and am not restricted in any way (actually not true - I'm unable to lie on my stomach without pain, annoying but not that important). I am just so stumped by it. I've even tried just leaving it alone, knowing it will leave at some point, it doesn't matter when. Hasn't made any difference. We're going on almost 9 months now.... It's just so strange. There was no injury, although I had been shoveling snow for 3 hours (no pain while I was doing this though). A year previous I did have a genuine back injury, where I fell extremely hard on my tailbone and lower back. But healing was steady and within a month I was back to sports and running again, and after some stretching all residual stiffness disappeared. With this stretching actually feels terrible and seems to make it worse. So it is most definitely not an injury - all injuries feel better with stretching. I am just stumped because this thing will not budge and not respond to any treatment I have tried. It is just so weird. Any other veteran TMS healers with some advice?

And for those who are still healing please don't be discouraged by my story - this pain is not crippling and TMS is real!

 

I’d suggest rethinking
“not so much hidden emotional stress”
and refer back to Dr. Sarno.
Emotional stress comes in many forms: our subconcious anger, self-perceptions, self-talk/mindset/ limiting beliefs, fear, personality traits…
Conditioning is surely a component is not necessarily the only thing at play. Consider that something in your life is keeping your nervous system on high alert. Keeping an open and curious mind can really help to soften the stress of not knowing what is “wrong”. At this point you probably don’t even need to dig.
Just be open to the fact you have rage and find that ratio of letting out emotions (journal, lists, feeling emotions in the body, acknowledging resistance), and what is often called “self-soothing”.. meditation, music, nature walks, hobbies -stuff you can enjoy just for the sake of it instead of for the accomplishment.